


Causation Duality

by dogtit



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Body Horror, F/F, Human Experimentation, also warnings for:, didnt want to tag relationships that aren't Primary so:, identity crisis, implied future leon/cloud, past Zack/Aerith - Freeform, past aerith/cloud, the major character death tag is only for the past. tifa gets better., tifa and sephiroth are ghosts (or ARE THEY)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-22
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:55:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24321649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dogtit/pseuds/dogtit
Summary: But those are dangerous thoughts. And not all her own, Tifa realizes with some fear. If this girl that Cloud cares for so deeply can rustle even the old chains of their bond, after ten years of disuse and heartsick love, then of course Tifa would want to go where she leads. If Sephiroth demands power, the power to protect and hurt and destroy and create--things Cloud wants--then doesn’t it make sense that Tifa wants that same softness?--Before the fall of Radiant Garden, Cloud Strife's heart was cracked in two. One ghost, he chased. The other chased him, and fell in love along the way.
Relationships: Aerith Gainsborough/Tifa Lockhart, Tifa Lockhart & Cloud Strife
Comments: 6
Kudos: 89





	Causation Duality

**Author's Note:**

> so i finished ff7r last night and wrote this in a 6 hour haze, tried to post it, failed, and now im trying again. its untouched in any aspect aside from a few more readings of my own correcting phrases and clarifying when i felt appropriate, but all that said, its a tad rougher that midnight is by sheer virtue of not having a second pair of eyes on this badboy. so all mistakes are my own! 
> 
> anyway; the 'tifas a ghost' theory is because of comments nomuras made about sephiroth and how tifa herself plays into it too. theyre both vanitas, in a way, and cloud's really Goin Thru It, Huh.

Cloud is seventeen and scared. He’s also naked, strapped to a table, and poisoned with chemicals that sound like magical incantations, staring up at the cool, yellow eyes of Ansem. Silver hair tumbles down the scientist’s back, strands framing his face as he impassively fiddles with Cloud’s restraints, making sure there’s no room for escape. 

He agreed to this. Going into the Royal Guard program and signing waivers of consent meant that he was also signing up for the latest medical and scientific breakthroughs to protect Radiant Garden from the slow creep of darkness; Cloud read the contracts back and forth, front and back, before he signed. And even if this is the most terrifying thing he’s ever experienced--

Well. No. Not quite. 

Crossing that rickety bridge far beyond the outskirts of the city was terrifying. Calling out her name while gripping onto the ropes with white knuckles was terrifying. Watching her fall was terrifying, joining her was terrifying, waking up to a Curaga knitting his bones in place but watching them zip a black bag over her face, her body-- _ that _ was terrifying. 

This here? This can’t hold a candle to the one he’d carried at Tifa’s funeral. It’s scary and it’s shitty and he feels all kinds of sick and wrong thanks to the experimental medicine regime he’s been on for the last three weeks, but it’s worth it. 

He never got to protect Tifa like she’d asked him to, like he’d  _ promised _ to. She’s dead and gone and he’s still alive when it should be the other way around. 

(Aerith might scold him if she ever finds out he’s still carrying this weight. She’d never gotten to meet Tifa,and he never talks about her, or how they’d been the only survivors of their fallen world, but she knows Cloud lost someone close to him when they were kids. Aerith has that scary kind of insight. 

Maybe, if this works, if he’s strong enough--maybe he’ll tell Aerith about it. That might be nice. It might feel--feel good, to share that burden. To unwind all the golden light of Tifa’s memory from his heart, share it so that--that Cloud isn’t the only thing keeping her alive. In theory. 

Aerith would be good for her--Aerith would be good  _ to _ her. To him. 

It would be enough.)

So it’s with all this in his head that Cloud sucks in air through his nose, lets it out through his mouth. It trembles ominously, his hands shaking even as he curls them into fists, and there’s a strange itching under his skin. In his heart. 

“There,” says the scientist. “That should be good. How do you feel, Mr. Strife?”

“C...cold.” Cloud struggles with the word. The words come sluggish, sticking in his throat. “Inside and out.”

“Hm. Any unusual burning sensations?”

Now that he mentions it...Cloud tries to shift in his restraints, wincing. His chest feels oddly tight. “Um, I might be having a panic attack, sir.”

“Oh?”

“Hard to breathe.”

“Well, that’s normal.” The scientist moves around the table, dimming the lights as he goes. 

Cloud can still move his head, so he follows the other man as best as he’s able to. There are tanks lining the walls of the laboratory, with strange, luminous shapes floating in some unidentifiable liquid. Cloud doesn’t like the look of them much. They make his head feel full and his heart flutter in terror.

“Tell me, Mr. Strife,” Ansem says lightly, vanishing behind the machines, ”have you suffered loss?”

His hands clench into tighter fists. Cloud grinds his jaw back and forth and stares up at the slightly domed ceiling. “I...Is it necessary for this?”

“I abide by a strict doctor-patient confidentiality, Mr. Strife,” Ansem answers in a voice like warm butter. Soothing, deceptive. “And, yes, it is. Previous traumas may skew the results in certain ways.”

“I--I lost my home world.” Cloud bites out the words. His eyes burn. “A man named Sephiroth...brought Heartless. They ate it all up.”

“Are you the only survivor?”

“I am.” Now. Tifa had been with him, before she’d fallen--before Cloud had  _ let _ her fall.

“And our records show that you had a tumultuous upbringing within the foster system,” notes the scientist. He’s by the wall behind Cloud’s head, audibly fiddling with something metallic. “History of fights in public schools, aggression toward counselors, a codependent personality…” 

Cloud feels the humiliation settle like a shroud. Tears prick at the corners of his eyes.  _ Is that enough to disqualify me from the program? _ He wonders. 

“Such a _ dark _ time,” Ansem muses. He comes back to Cloud’s side. In his grip is a wicked, horrific looking sword; black and metal with a turquoise eyeball staring down into Cloud’s soul. His heart freezes in fear and his dream gutters like a spent candle, smoke filling his lungs. 

“You’re just the right age. Now, hold very still, please.”

* * *

There’s an angry thumping in his chest. The pulpy remains of an organ in distress. Fragments of memories prod the grey meat inside of his skull with ghosts and mockery. Cloud huddles in a corner and stares across the hall, into the cages parallel to his, one hand fisted in the top of his scrubs. 

Two amorphous shapes sit there, one bigger than the other. The Darkness of his heart peers into him with glowing green eyes, pacing on all fours. Hunks of its mass drip from its body and collect at the bottom of the cage--more like a tank, really--and eventually reform back in a cycle. The Light, small and shivering, simply looks at him curiously. Its eyes are a cinnamon red, kind and yearning, motes of energy trailing off its downy body like feathers with each little shift.

Cloud buries his head in his knees as the mourning wail of children rise around him. His Darkness paws to consume him, and his Light is so small, so weak, it can do nothing but watch.

* * *

“Cloud,” says the Darkness. 

He looks up. The Darkness is more humanoid now, solidifying day by day. It says his name in shifting voices, whispers without home. 

“Cloud,” says the Darkness again, scraping against the glass. How many days has it been? Or maybe weeks, months have passed. He’s vanished, Cloud realizes. None of his friends know where he is. 

What will Squall do? Or old man Cid? 

_ Aerith _ , he thinks in pure despair. She’d already been through one bad ‘break up’ with a boyfriend from Olympus Coliseum. They’d talked about it together, maybe going on a date or two once Cloud was in the Royal Guard proper, flirted and joked and--and now he won’t get to see her smile again. He won’t get to make her laugh. The Darkness is going to eat him up when it breaks out and it's going to enjoy snapping his bones between its teeth. 

There’s a soft sound. Little hands hitting glass. Cloud looks over and finds the Light pressing as close to him as it can, whining. The Light can’t speak, barely has a form to maintain even as it’s grown--still miniscule compared to the Darkness, but, but--

Those red eyes beg him. Three fingered hands bat the glass again. In a raspy squeak, the Light says, “Aerith!  _ Pray. _ ” 

“ _ Cloud _ ,” growls the Darkness. 

“Pray!”

Cloud squeezes his eyes shut and curls up tighter. And he prays, quietly, to nothing and to no one but his memories of better times. Warm summer nights in Cid’s garage, sharing peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with Aerith and Squall. Walking with Yuffie to the general store to keep her from stuffing Gummi Bears into her pockets without paying. Paying when he inevitably failed, but the two of them laughing about it anyway. 

“Dilly dally, shilly shally,” Aerith had told him once, playfully bumping her hip against his. They were covered in flour from hand to elbow, kneading bread dough for Merlin in the sweltering summer, earning a little extra Munny for a trip to the beach. 

“Dilly...dally,” the Light wheezes. Cloud looks up from his prayers, blinking tears away. The Light’s a little bigger now, almost Yuffie’s size. There’s a definite human shape to it now. Like a child. 

“With you,” says the Light, drowning out the Darkness’s frantic chanting of his name. “ _ With you. _ ”

* * *

He remembers sitting at the well with Tifa, the night before Sephiroth destroyed Nibelheim with the Darkness. He remembers wanting so badly to be her friend, and her so badly wanting to leave the world they lived on. The one night the barriers between their social circles had crumbled into dust and they’d actually connected, two six year olds without a lot of sense between them.

“We could build a raft,” Tifa had suggested. 

“What? We’re landlocked,” Cloud had said. “There’s no ocean around for miles, and we can’t just carry a raft all the way down the mountains.”

“Yeah, rafts are dumb,” Tifa pouted. “Say, Cloud, let’s make a deal, okay?”

“Huh?”

She’d stood up, hands linked behind her back. Her blue dress had fluttered around her knees, long sable hair pulled in the wind. The stars above them had stretched above, a spinning display of ambition.

“If I’m ever in trouble, you gotta come in and help me out,” Tifa declared. She turned her head and beamed at him, and Cloud had felt very warm.

“O-Okay,” he’d stammered. “It’s a promise.”

* * *

“Okay,” he’d whispered to himself, clammy hand tight around Tifa’s wrist as they’d fled from Nibelheim and flames and shadows. “It’s a promise.”

* * *

“Okay,” he’d murmured as Tifa stepped onto the swaying bridge. “It’s a promise.”

* * *

“Okay,” says Tifa. “It’s a promise.”

Cloud presses himself flat against the back of his cell. The Light is gone. Tifa sits in its place, still a child and still healthy and whole. He starts to hyperventilate as alarms start to blare, as the walls shake. 

“Cloud!” Tifa beats her fists against the glass. “It’s going to be okay! I’ll come find you!” 

The Darkness screeches and flings itself against its tank. The structure wobbles. It’s grown so, so terribly big; it has hair, long, with wings curling from the back. It has broad shoulders and a soldier’s build, angry ferocity. It wants to kill, it wants to hurt, and it wants Cloud. The Darkness shoves against the tank again, and the cylinder pitches forward, stopped only by a cascade of wires and tubes. 

The door of his cell opens with a hydraulic hiss. Cloud throws up his arms in front of his face and screams, eighteen and petrified of what the Darkness will take from him. Tifa screams in tandem, her voice breaking like it did when she fell from the bridge. 

The tanks--both of them--crack open. The Darkness slithers out, amorphous and strange, all cracking bones and sucking ooze that plops onto the steel floor. Tifa works her fingers, furiously tugging at her own door, teeth bared. She heaves and heaves but her child arms are no match for the glass. No match for the way Darkness spills and spills and spills like blood and fire and torture. 

It stands up. Begins to morph a final time. 

In seconds, Sephiroth stands where his Darkness once lay. He looks just like he did when he doomed Nibelheim, with the addition of wings; two curling over his hips and one crooked over his shoulder, leathery and downy at the same time. Contradiction; unreal. Cloud stares because he can’t help it; can’t help but see what his heart’s birthed. 

Sephiroth is reborn in his own image, like the limb of a god fallen to the choppy waters of the sea. From its foam comes a horror unspeakable. 

(Is Tifa the same? If the Light in his heart is gone, reformed and replaced by the ghost of his friend, how real does it make her?

How real does it make him?)

“There,” Sephiroth says. His voice is a decadent croon of evil things whispered in the hollow chambers of Cloud’s heart, his nightmares. “There, now. Was that so hard...Cloud…?” 

_ He knows my name, _ Cloud thinks in despair. 

“Don’t you touch him!” Tifa snarls. She rams her tiny shoulder into the glass and scrambles at it, half feral. “Don’t you  _ dare _ touch him!” 

Sephiroth looks over with a curious hum. Inspects Tifa, eight years old and driving her fists into the glass sheen hard enough to crack it, splinter it, yet not draw blood. She should be bloodied. She should be dead. She is neither. 

“So small,” Sephiroth says. Masamune flutters to life in his hand, and he studies the blade curiously, like it’s the first time he’s seen it in his life. His eyes catch Cloud, and sharpen, and the fear in Cloud’s heart turns to anguished rage so quickly it feels like his chest is on fire. 

“So fragile.” 

“No!” Cloud bellows when Masamune spears into Tifa’s tank. She barely dodges it, faster than Cloud can blink, and her eyes are crimson suns as she stares Sephiroth down. 

“I could snuff this little light out in an instant,” Sephiroth muses. “Because this is what you’ve suppressed. This is what you hate. The inevitable tragedy of it all. How many times will you fail to save the people you cherish?”

There’s a curious, cryptic lilt to his words. Cloud stifles it as he bumbles to his feet, the pants of his scrubs nearly falling off of sick-bone-thin hips, the concave remainder of his stomach. Ansem’s treatments were rigorous and brutal; he prays he’s the only child to ever suffer this betrayal from the master of Radiant Garden, but then that hope fades away into the abyssal stretch of fury. 

“Come to me,” Sephiroth beckons. The roof above Cloud trembles, buckles, and then peels away. Above the three of them is a swirling vortex of Darkness, eating at the heart of Radiant Garden. Like Nibelheim. “Follow me until the end, Cloud. Chase the Darkness and forget you’ve ever known the Light.” 

“Don’t do it,” Tifa begs him, but she sounds resigned. Like she knows. Like she can tell Cloud’s already stopped listening to her, because there’s only one way it could ever possibly end. 

If Sephiroth is remade in the Darkness, then it is Cloud’s sin. It is Cloud’s duty to find him, and kill him, and stop the misery for good. 

Leaving Tifa behind, he runs. 

* * *

_ What am I? _

Neither human, nor Nobody, nor Heartless. An inbetween of the inbetween, a delicate creation of sorcery and inhuman science. Once upon a time, there was a girl named Tifa Lockhart; she had many friends but only one that bound himself to her heart, only one she wanted to be bound to. One day, her world was torn asunder, and then some years later, her vessel cracked open and her heart extinguished. 

...Maybe. 

Tifa isn’t sure what she is, anymore. She is fully aware that she cannot in good conscience call herself Cloud’s friend; she is what his Light has made of her, stitched with his memories and some far off dreams from the realm of sea and sky. As impossible as Sephiroth is, and as intrinsically linked. 

She knows the other half of her-his-theirs, his whereabouts and his power. How could she not? They both sprang from Cloud, are made from what Cloud’s psyche can cobble together, and feel what he feels for them. For others. 

Cloud spends ten years in ageless stasis chasing Sephiroth. Tifa knows better than to follow him into the shackles of the Underworld; Sephiroth is strong enough to survive it. Tifa...is not. 

_ How could I be? _ She wonders, staring at her hands. _ When Cloud barely acknowledges the Light? _

She’s grown, and aged, of course. Now she resembles what she might have in life. What Tifa might have in life. She frowns-- _ It frowns? _ \--and broods over the nature of her not-quite-thereness. She doubts Sephiroth feels the same way; Darkness is all primal nature and the inner beast. It’s not to say he’s stupid--far from it--but it’s to say that he cares not what he is or isn’t. He’s not bothered if he’s not real, if she’s not real. He cares about strength.

In his very, very own way, he cares about Cloud. 

But outside interference has warped the both of them; it’s turned Sephiroth feral, and Tifa sentient. Neither of them should be free of Cloud, neither of them should exist, and Tifa half longs to fold herself back where she belongs; into Cloud’s heart, fostering the chains of his heart, side by side with the Darkness to keep him safe. 

(After all; the Darkness within one’s own heart is nothing to fear. It’s as much a part of one as an arm or leg.)

But the Keyblade is a wicked thing, and the machinations of greed more wicked still. 

So here Tifa sits; alone and unwanted by that which created her, and aware of all she lacks and all she wants. Which is  _ dangerous _ ; she is Light. She is  _ Cloud _ ’ _ s _ Light given tangible, awful, horrid shape. She is not meant to feel  _ lonely _ or  _ angry _ and she feels them both in waves.  _ I must not feel it too much,  _ she thinks. 

_ I must not develop a heart of my own. _

To do so would be to doom Cloud. And while she calls herself Tifa--a concession she must make, to have any semblance of form, of function, to keep herself from crumbling into nothingness--she  _ is not Tifa Lockhart. _

(I can’t be, she thinks with a weighty sorrow. 

He would never accept a falsehood.)

So she skulks the remains of Hollow Bastion, until Maleficent and the Heartless and the Keyblade Wielders come. Unseen, she lingers as Princess after Princess is stolen. There isn’t much she can do; Tifa could fight back against the hordes, knows they avoid her form of Light like ghosts among hallow ground, but the witch and the dark spectre are on a whole other level. Cloud could not fight them; therefore, she cannot fight them. It’s synchronicity. 

But eventually, destiny leads its players to the challenge. And soon Sora has sealed the Keyhole and restored some form of order and light to a world that had lost nearly all of it; for Radiant Garden became Hollow Bastion in name and form, but it had never truly lost the whole of its heart to the great Darkness beyond. So Tifa sits in the shadows and feels Sephiroth and Cloud scraping worlds away, and she watches over the trio of folk return to their desecrated homeland with curious eyes. 

The scarred man, that’s...Squall, Tifa remembers from what she has of Cloud. The young child there is Yuffie; grown scrawny and scrappy and  _ loud _ , as he’d always imagined. 

And then Tifa sees her. A girl with long brown hair and the earth’s blood in her eyes, ancient and  _ Ancient _ , in ways very few speak of. Without fail, she finds Tifa in the shadowed rafters. Tifa flinches back, unused to eyes parsing through the delicate fibers of the Cloud’s dark-smog heart to  _ see _ her. 

Aerith, Tifa remembers. 

This is Aerith. 

( _ I think _ , Cloud had once thought, staring into the mirror before he went into the Guard, before he was stolen from them all,  _ I think I like her. _ ) 

This is the source of his light. Of  _ Tifa _ . It traces back here, to this deceptively fragile young woman who stands among the halls once caked in Darkness, with no weapon but the magic thrumming in her veins. This mysterious creature that looks into the abyss, and waits for it with open arms. 

_ I want _ \--

But those are dangerous thoughts. And not all her own, Tifa realizes with some fear. If this girl that Cloud cares for so deeply can rustle even the old chains of their bond, after ten years of disuse and heartsick love, then of course Tifa would want to go where she leads. If Sephiroth demands power, the power to protect and hurt and destroy and create--things  _ Cloud _ wants--then doesn’t it make sense that Tifa wants that same softness?

(The fact she can parse between what  _ she _ wants and the echochamber of Cloud’s heart is discerning.) 

* * *

She flees all the same as the Keyblade Wielder destroys the Seeker of Darkness and restores the worlds that can be restored. Some remain in slumber to heal and await their reunion; most flourish. 

Tifa travels, then, riding currents opened to her by the restoration. She follows Cloud as far as she can, always a stutter-step too late. Recklessly he pursues Sephiroth, as if culling the monster of his Darkness will restore some lost fragment of himself. When his heart goes beyond her reach--and is that not a horrific thought, that his heart can remain out of his Light’s scope--Tifa returns to Radiant Garden. 

Upon the ruins being restored, she sits and she watches. She patrolls and kills Heartless, though she’s careful to keep herself from being seen; she has no identity to master, no chance to escape the watchful eyes of the Restoration Committee if she’s discovered. But as Cloud orbits Sephiroth in a desire to find his redemption, Tifa finds herself orbiting the pieces of him that matter most. 

Yuffie. Squall. Cid, Merlin. 

Aerith. 

(She should not. She should not remain by this woman any more than she already has.)

A Behemoth tramples close to the town; Tifa meets it half way, fists and Light tearing through the dark. Cloud is strong, and Tifa stronger still, but it still takes her by surprise. She breaks through its horn, and its parting shot is a beam of magic so strong and rank that she’s sent flying. Senseless, pained--

_ My form is only functional, I can’t feel, I can’t have this, if I go any further then I can’t go back, I’ll be-- _

\--and feels wood and stone break under her.

* * *

She awakens to the smell of flowers. 

“It’s you,” Aerith breathes. 

Tifa peels her eyes open. She’s...in some sort of church, or a structure very much like it. Blown out stained glass, with fragments of color remaining in the crooked metal lines. Pews. A sloped ceiling, cathedral-esque.

“You’re that girl,” Aerith clarifies for no one’s sake but her very own. “I remember you. Nearly a year ago, now, but...you were in Hollow Bastion, weren’t you? Hiding?” 

Tifa tries to sit up; Aerith reaches out with her hands and settles them against her shoulders. 

“No, no, lay back down,” she scolds. “Looks like you had a nasty fall--”

“This isn’t necessary,” Tifa croaks, “my body is--”

But the pain that pops up and down her back in shortcircuit spasms surprises her. Tifa gasps and has no choice but to let Aerith guide her back down among wildgrass and flowers both, face screwed up. She shouldn’t...she shouldn’t be restricted like this, but she is, and the idea of being so is humbling and frightening. 

(  _ If I’m not his Light given a shape he recalls, then what am I? _ )

“What is it with you tough-guy types,” Aerith sighs with a fond exasperation Tifa has no right to, “always saying  _ ‘oh, my body can handle it’ _ ? Clearly not. Here, hold steady.” 

A Curaga spell weaves through Tifa’s body, pours relief into her like a breath of fresh air. Aerith’s hands remain on her skin, as she remains half bent over Tifa’s supine form, eyes magic-bright and curious. Tifa stares back, and feels her chest thrum. 

“You seem familiar, somehow,” Aerith says. Then, “What’s your name?”

“T...Tifa,” she replies slowly, considerately. She’s never been asked that before. In self reflection, it’s easy to call herself by the name of a dead girl whose face she wears; in practice, it’s something she fears. “My name is Tifa Lockhart.” 

“Aerith Gainsborough.” There’s a knowing look given. “But somehow, I think you already knew that.” 

“Call it a hunch,” Tifa weakly banters. 

Aerith sees her up, then onto her feet. When Tifa stretches, she feels the unnatural strength of the Light pulsing through her arms, legs, fists and feet. She practically glows with it, skin tingling from where Aerith had touched her; a physical response. As wholesome as Aerith is, she is still a human of flesh and fibers of Darkness deep within, and so it’s natural for there to be a sizzle of contact. Tifa watches Aerith flex her arms with a thoughtful frown in return, as if she can feel it too.

“I’ll walk you home,” Tifa offers. Recklessly. Without thought. She is Cloud’s heart, after all. 

“Oh?” Aerith tilts her head curiously. “That’s awful nice of you, Miss Lockhart. But I don’t have any Munny on me; left my wallet at home. It’s not in my budget for a bodyguard, anyway.” 

“I don’t have prices,” Tifa fires back, propping her fists on her hips. “Besides, call it...payback for healing me, there.”

“Oh?  _ That _ was payback for the Behemoth.” At Tifa’s shocked expression, Aerith laughs. “You’re not as stealthy as you think, you know? Hard to miss someone just... _ ha! Ha! _ ” She boxes the air, “And wiping out Heartless with her fists alone.” 

“Ah…” Tifa shrugs. Her chest tingles beneath the bone of her sternum. “I still don’t feel right taking any pay--”

“Oh! I know!” Aerith springs to her side, hands linked behind her back. “How about this; you get me home, safe and sound...and in return, you get one date.” 

“A d--” Tifa flushes. The thrumming intensifies. “Date? What?” 

“Yep! So, it’s settled? We’ll make the date match as long as it takes you to get me home, Miss Bodyguard.” 

“But,” Tifa tries, lamely, and follows as Aerith spins around her and makes for the door, “Heartless slaying aside, how can you trust me? We’ve only just met!”

And Aerith looks over her shoulder, and her eyes are that open, soft, weary and old thing again. Her smile says utterly nothing; it feels, very much in that moment, like someone else is living within the confines of her skin. Tifa goes still and obedient under that look, waiting on bated breath for a revelation. 

“Oh?” Aerith asks her, voice quiet, tender in a way that defies explanation. “Are you so sure about that?”

* * *

Tifa had only known  _ of _ Sora, and not deeply enough for any kind of bond to form between them. So it is that she watches the rest of his friends, Cloud’s friends, her friends, forget the Keyblade boy one after the other. It starts small; mid conversation, they’ll forget his name upon a remark of his health. Frowns, then dismisses, and eventual recognition. 

But the longer it goes, the more they forget. 

There’s a dangerous kind of magic in play here. The kind that can unravel the chain of memories so cleanly; if Cloud were to forget about Tifa, the  _ real _ Tifa--

( _ real? _ )

\--then that could be bad for the one who wears her face now. 

“So, you’re leaving?” Aerith asks as Tifa stops by her cottage to say goodbye.

“I have someone to find,” Tifa says. “I have to make sure he’s not getting himself into trouble.” 

“Oh, is that...all?” Aerith’s voice is strangely quiet. Too light. Too effectively unaffected. Tifa, being a creature born of the heart, can parse through emotions with some limited capacity; she raises both brows. 

Aerith...is jealous. 

“He’s a mess,” Tifa finds herself saying. “And stubborn, and a wreck. He needs someone to have his back. Make sure he gets back home.” She looks at Aerith, and hopes she doesn’t reveal everything, as she says, “To the people who matter to him.” 

Tifa leaves after that. Aerith doesn’t say anything at all. 

* * *

When all is said and done--

(When Sora finally frees Radiant Garden from the chokehold of Darkness. 

When Cloud and Sephiroth meet head to head, and vanish out of Tifa’s sight all too fast.

When she is left alone and feels too vulnerable and human.)

\--it’s Aerith who seeks her out. She hefts herself up onto the stone wall Tifa perches on, and swings her legs in the air as they sit side by side. There’s a strained loneliness, and Tifa feels that it’s hard to breathe. Her body strung out, her nature at war with what she wants and what Cloud needs, wants, deserves. 

She is  _ not _ his friend, Tifa has to remind herself. She is a part of his heart left behind, but never discarded. One day, this form will break down, and she will get to go home. It would be cruel to foster anything with the Realm of Light or Darkness, when she belongs nowhere but within the catacombs of Cloud’s heart.

“So,” Aerith says, shattering the calm and quiet, “Cloud, huh?” 

“Old friend,” Tifa not-quite-lies. “Nothing more.” 

“Well,  _ that’s _ awfully defensive,” Aerith giggles. “I know he’s single. But...you know...I don’t think he’s the same as he used to be.” 

Tifa grinds her jaw. She says, “Time changes us all,” and at Aerith’s wordless hum she turns to look. “He’s grown. He’s been through hell.”

“Yeah,” Aerith agrees easily. Too easily. “Yeah, I know.” 

“I don’t think you do.”

“Ansem, or Xehanort--whatever he was calling himself,” Aerith says, “Cloud wasn’t his only victim, you know. Children all over were taken into that castle, and they’re never coming home.” 

Aerith stands slowly. Tifa follows her with her eyes, mystified and humbled again. Aerith always speaks with softness that belies the reservoir of untouched turmoil. When was she meant to unravel, Tifa wonders. When she was looking after Yuffie? Trying to wrangle Squall into his own skin? When she was waiting for Cloud, for years and years and years? 

“I can only imagine,” Aerith says, looking upon the ruins of Radiant Garden’s castle, “what happened to Cloud. How deeply he was hurt, to have pieces of himself taken. I can only hope that what little light I give him is enough to see him home.” 

There’s a sour taste on the back of her tongue. Aerith looks toward the stars, where Cloud and Sephiroth vanished. She has no idea of how integral she is to Cloud; when the world was crumbling around them, Tifa had begged him to think of Aerith, to pray. His Light-- _ Tifa _ \--had formed around it. This impossible girl. 

Who thinks that Tifa is a normal girl, and only worth some teasing, some faux flirting because she’s nice and it’s fun and Tifa laughs along with her sometimes. Who has already given her heart away. 

“Back when we first met,” Aerith says, “I thought you were dead.”

Tifa stares. 

“I checked for a pulse.” Aerith looks over her shoulder. “There wasn’t one.” 

Tifa looks back. Swallows. “I guess your Cure came in time.” 

“I guess so,” Aerith agrees, then she steps forward into open air. Tifa’s throwing herself after her in an instant, wraps her up and braces them for impact; there’s a tightness in her left shoulder blade, and a burst of light. Their descent slows to a graceful touch down, Aerith staring openly, and Tifa caught in the glimmer sharp edge of her eyes. White feathers drift and then shatter into nothing as the one-wing bursts into snow powder soft motes of light, unable to sustain itself any longer. Cloud has discarded his wing, after all; Tifa is too weak to make one of her own, even to parallel herself with Sephiroth like nature demands. 

“I knew it,” Aerith says very quietly, the words damning them both in a breath. “I knew it.”

* * *

Tifa leaves but it’s never for very long. 

She always comes back. It is inevitable. Like the tide and the moon and the push-pull of Light and Darkness. Even if Aerith will never see her-- _ not that there’s anything to see, _ Tifa reminds herself every time she finds herself feeling an ache for it--isn’t this good for Cloud in the end? His Light is in direct contact with a beacon that will lead him home. Like this, there’s no way Sephiroth will win. The Darkness only has itself; the Light has Cloud’s friends, the bonds between them. 

_ Yes _ , Tifa thinks.  _ Yes, that’s good enough for me. _

So she fosters it all, bridges the gap. Every laugh she shares with Aerith is a laugh in Cloud’s chest, every touch, every joke and compliment. She helps Yuffie with her combat practice and Squall with his drills and patrols. She cooks for Cid when he forgets to eat, and makes star shaped tea cakes for Merlin as he stares down at a strange tome, muttering about  _ Kairi  _ and  _ Axel _ and progress and wars.

Weeks in bliss. In softness. 

She spends nights simply talking to Aerith about her hopes and her dreams--how Aerith longs for the world to piece itself back together completely, for life and love and spring to flower from deadened soil like a miracle. 

“Flowers,” Aerith says as they lay in the flowerbed in her church, gesturing to the countless stars in the sky. The hole Tifa made on the way down lets the moonlight sparkle down on them. Aerith’s other hand is in her own, fingers locked together like a secret, safe and new and beautiful. “I want this whole  _ world _ to be full of them...as pretty as it used to be. No! More, even!” 

“Yeah?” Tifa whispers. “That sounds...nice…” 

“You remember, right?” Aerith looks at her now, her voice growing softer with memory. “I know you and Cloud were children, but…” 

_ I don’t _ , would be the lie she should say. But the truth slips out of her lips with some wonder: “I do. The marigolds out by the canyon were so gorgeous. I remember...I wanted to get some…”

Marigolds were her mother’s favorite. She’d wanted to go into the canyons to gather some to make a wreath, like they would in Nibelheim. She wanted to make something to honor the people lost to Nibelheim’s fall. Cloud had followed her along, because they were the last of their people. 

And then Tifa remembers falling. Dying.

But she shouldn’t. 

She sits up, gasping. She wrenches her hand out of Aerith’s as if burned, distressed because it doesn’t. Because the fierce burn of Light and Dark that blossoms between them...is gone. 

“Tifa?!” Aerith sounds scared. Hurt. “What’s wrong? Are you okay? Tifa?”

“I can’t,” Tifa breathes. “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t be this…”

She runs out of the church, she leaves Aerith behind. It hurts, but this is the only sure way. She will not ruin Cloud for Aerith, she won’t ruin their happy ending. She runs out into the night and the dark, and it takes longer than it should for her to find the seam between this world and the next. She throws herself forward and chases Cloud, a burgeoning star that streaks across the sky. 

(Left behind, Aerith stands vigil. As always.)

* * *

“Hey,” Cloud greets weakly. 

They are in Olympus Coliseum again. He looks...better. Stronger. Healthier, somehow. Tifa wants to frown at the sight of it, but how can she? He looks like he used to, when he was seventeen and they were whole, untouched by Xehanort’s Keyblade and experiments. Tifa doesn’t understand it. 

“Hey yourself,” Tifa says, because she’s used to being friendly with the group in Radiant Garden and the muscle memory sensation of cheer takes a while to go away. She looks at her feet, doesn’t want to see how her mockery of his childhood friend has hurt him. 

She waits. Guilt gnaws her. 

“Tifa,” Cloud says quietly. “Look at me. Please?”

Tifa obeys. Her lips tremble and she can’t look away because...for the first time, maybe, in a long time, Cloud looks at peace with himself. With everything. He has no scorn or fear saved for her, no relentless rage. Even though Tifa can feel Sephiroth, still, like an old ache in healed bone that comes when the weather grows wet and cold. Two opposite halves of the same whole. As it should be. As it must be. 

“I can’t believe it,” he murmurs. “How...how is it possible?” 

“How is what possible?” 

“You were dead,” Cloud says, and dread makes a hollow of Tifa’s stomach. 

“I’m the Light of your heart given shape,” she’s quick, desperate, to correct. “Nothing more than that. You thought of Tifa Lockhart as something good and bright, so, I formed to match it.” 

Cloud stares through her. For a horrible instant, she fears she’s broken him with this. Shattered and ruined his heart beyond repair. That she’ll have hurt her very best friend in the worlds and--

_ No! He’s not my friend! He’s me, I’m him, we are-- _

“I don’t think,” Cloud says slowly, with much thought, “that’s really true. Maybe it was...I remember thinking that you weren’t real, back then. I thought you were just a ghost.” 

“I am,” Tifa half sobs.  _ I am nothing. I’m your Light. Please accept me, take me back, I want to be back with you-- _

(She thinks about Aerith and starlight and the way their fingers fit.)

“No,” Cloud corrects without and judgement, reaching forward. He cups her wrist in his hand, and uses the grip to pull her in. To hold her. Her forehead knocks against his shoulder, only an inch of difference between their respective heights, and she shivers. Waits to melt back into the softness of his heart where she belongs. Waits to stop existing like a mistake. 

“No,” he says again. “No. You came back.” 

“I’m not  _ real _ ,” she hisses back. “I can’t be. For your sake, I  _ can’t be. _ ” 

* * *

She’s the one running, now. 

Cloud chases her like he chased Sephiroth, with reckless and fearless determination. There’s no anger in him, just this...steady surety that he’s going to make her believe in herself. He’s going to make her believe in the lie of her own face. 

It doesn’t last as long as the endless dance with Sephiroth, of course. After about a year, Cloud goes back to Radiant Garden. Tifa follows after a month, eyes wide at the change. There’s still scars of the world’s former destruction; most of the homes are built with patchwork wood, sturdy but undeniably different. The stonework is older, scrubbed raw rather than freshly cut. 

But it looks like home, all the same. 

It takes about three hours before Aerith corners her. She’s come alone. Tifa thought she’d have kept at Cloud’s side now that he seems to be here for good, if the rumors Tifa’s heard are to be believed. She’s not sure why it hurts her so much to think that. Why her chest hurts so terribly to think that Aerith and Cloud are finally together. 

Maybe, Tifa thinks as Aerith comes closer, her expression furious and sad, this is it. Maybe Aerith is here to demand Tifa disappear once and for all.

Maybe this is when she gets to go home. 

“How could you?” Aerith demands, her fists coming down on Tifa’s chest. “How could you say that?!” 

“W-what?” Tifa takes a step back, more out of shock than anything else. 

“How could you ever say that you’re not  _ real?! _ You’re real!” Aerith looks up at her, eyes swimming and wet. She’s about to cry, Tifa realizes as her stomach drops to her feet. Aerith has never cried, not in any memory Tifa possesses--stolen or otherwise. 

And then Aerith’s arms are around her, squeezing. She presses her wet face against the dip of Tifa’s throat, tear-hot breath shuddering across the thin and tender skin there. Tifa stands still, arms in the air and feeling horribly helpless. 

“I can’t be--” Tifa swallows. “Cloud must have told you. Of course he did. The real Tifa died, and when we were parted, I took on her shape and--that’s all I am. Really.” 

“So everything  _ we  _ shared,” Aerith says, putting a strange and weighty emphasis on the word. She looks vulnerable and Tifa freezes. “That was a lie too?” 

Something in her twists so hard that it hurts. It hurts so, so, so much. Tifa breathes in and trembles, and her words burst as a sob, “I guess so.” 

“You don’t believe that,” Aerith challenges, like always. “I know you, you don’t believe that. You’re  _ hurt _ .” 

“And you love him,” Tifa tries to say confidently, but her voice cracks with pain halfway through. Aerith’s brows furrow in confusion. “I’m his Light, Aerith, but you are his  _ everything _ .” 

“ _ What? _ ” The word comes out shaking. “I can’t--Tifa, I havent’s spoken to him in  _ ten years _ . I care about him, of  _ course _ , but I don’t think you’re--”

“You don’t understand,” Tifa says, faster, “because I’m his Light. I’m all that was good in him, all of his memories of love and happiness. I’m drawn to the things he cherishes. I love you, which means he loves you.” 

Aerith’s jaw drops. Her face goes very red. “You  _ love _ me?” 

“Of course I do,” Tifa says. She pets her fingertips over Aerith’s cheek, remembers shopping trips and late nights together, remembers the church and starlight and the way their fingers seemed to slot utterly into place. Yes, Tifa thinks, of course she’s in love, because this is Aerith, this is the girl  _ Cloud _ loves, so however could she not? 

Why is it so strange? Why does Aerith look like she can barely breathe? Like she’s tormented, caught between a joy so powerful it could break her open and spill out like light, and a sorrow so deep she would rather drown? Why it only gets worse as Aerith seems to come upon some sort of answer known only to her.

“ _ Tifa _ ,” Aerith whispers, breathes, stepping so close that Tifa could fall into the deep green of her eyes. That formless energy fills her again, as her hands cradle and frame Tifa’s waist. 

Tifa opens her mouth to speak, but a shadow casts itself over them, cutting through the sunset gloom. She ushers Aerith behind herself as a veil of black feathers drift like a soft rain. 

Sephiroth alights at the mouth of the alley and Aerith sucks in a breath behind her. Tifa can feel the tingle hot rush of a Firaga in the palm curled at her back. 

Ready to fight. 

But Sephiroth’s expression is calm. The look in his eyes is familiar; detached. He has been...pacified, Tifa thinks. He’s as calm as she used to be; maybe it’s Tifa that’s gone feral in absence of purpose, in the weight of all she cannot ever possess. All that she  _ yearns _ to possess. All...that she wishes she could become, if it was her fate to be given that chance. 

(But it’s not. It can’t be.)

“He no longer needs me,” Sephiroth says quietly, with a pride that speaks of a fight hard won, but a war unending. The nature of Darkness is that it always searches to become more, if the Light can’t meet it; Tifa can meet it, now, which means that Cloud’s Light is strong too. Maybe that’s why he looks healthy. 

“He no longer needs you,” Sephiroth says. His hand extends. “Come home.” 

_ Home _ . Cloud’s heart. All of them, the mess, sorted out. Finally able to rest. Tifa could cry, but the victory if it all falls hollow.

“She’s not going anywhere with you!” Aerith says, and she thrusts her hand up for the sky. The Firaga roars into the air, and then bursts in a signal flare shower, vivid red. Seconds later, the defense mechanism manned by Tron and Cid whirs to lift, orbs of digitized light racing across the cobblestones as a low siren emits in the air. 

But they don’t react. Sephiroth is not a Heartless, as Tifa is not a human. 

“Don’t interfere,” he warns softly. 

“Tifa,” Aerith says, and she holds onto Tifa’s wrist with hands that shake. Tifa turns at her urging, and her mouth parts to see Aerith so frazzled. She looks as if the world is going to end, but there’s no Heartless to be found, no Keyhole unprotected. “Tifa,  _ please _ , listen to me. You aren’t just an extension of Cloud--”

Tifa jerks her wrist out of Aerith’s grip. In a voice like steel, she says, “Yes. I am.” 

So she turns away. She walks. She takes Sephiroth’s wrist instead, feels his fingers close over her own, burning Aerith away. She closes her eyes and waits. 

“What’s this?” Sephiroth asks quietly. Tifa opens her eyes and he’s smiling down at her. Cold and cruel. His grip becomes iron. Tifa watches as he raises his other hand and the Masamune comes to him. “How  _ novel _ . But this must come to a stop before we can take our place.” 

Tifa becomes aware of her racing heart seconds before Sephiroth brings Masamune down, and the world turns dark. 

* * *

Sea salt. Sunshine. 

A child kneels by her head. 

“It’s you,” she says, stunned. She sits up. Her sodden hair drips water down her back. “You’re Tifa.” 

“So are you,” the child argues. 

“No, I…” Tifa looks away. Her chest feels funny. “I’m just Light.” 

“You used to be.” Her hand is taken. “But then you started getting a Heart, right?” 

“I stole everything of you,” Tifa says, miserable, guilty. She can’t look at the young girl who died, whose memories reside in Tifa’s head, from Cloud’s heart. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to--”

“I don’t think I was stolen,” corrects the girl. She stands up, and even sitting Tifa is almost her entire height. “I think I went to you.” 

She holds Tifa’s hand with both of her own. Tifa looks. The child is fading bit by bit, the warmth seeping into Tifa’s fingers, then up her arm. Her chest feels better the more she stares, even as the water seems to creep up around her hips, then her waist--

No, she’s only sinking. 

“Cloud’s getting his Light back,” says the girl. “You get to be happy too, you know.” 

“I don’t understand,” Tifa says. “I’m so confused. What am I? What are we?”

“You don’t know?” The girl laughs. She’s nearly fully transparent now, ghostlike and strange. “You’re me, all grown up! We’re together again. Two halves to the whole. Our hearts are merging.” 

“Merging…?” 

“Think of it like this, then. You’re me, and I’m you, and there was ever only one,” Tifa Lockhart says, and pushes down on her shoulders, sending her under. “Now go back home.”

* * *

Tifa opens her eyes. Merlin’s ceiling greets her, followed very closely by Cloud and Aerith rushing into her view.

There’s a dull sound of skull on skull. Cloud hisses; Aerith yelps, then curses, “ _ Fuck _ , why did you do that?! You  _ numbskull!” _

“I  _ wish _ my skull were numb,” Cloud drawls back.

“ _ Ohhh _ my god, shut up and move!” Yuffie pushes her way between them and flings her arms around Tifa’s neck. “I thought you were gonna  _ dieeee! _ ” 

Tifa accepts the hug, though she has little choice, and sifts through her memories. She has everything together, fitting and slotting into place. Her heart beats steady and strong and as she breathes she feels the pinch and pull of bandages. She blinks slowly, then says, “Would it help to know I’ve already died?” 

“Oh my  _ god, _ ” Yuffie says, appalled. She looks to Cid; “I mean, is she allowed to say that?”

Cid, helpless, can only shrug. 

“It  _ is _ you,” Cloud says, more than choked up. Ah, right; Tifa always had a tendency toward dark humor in their youth. Cloud had coped with bottling things up; Tifa had wanted to make rafts and starships to leave Nibelheim behind. He sits on the bed as Tifa struggles to sit up, accepting his help and pillows. Her entire chest is swathed in bandages, and if she had any modesty left to her, she’d be embarrassed to all of Nibelheim’s holy hells. 

As it stands, she doesn’t, so she isn’t. 

“I-I’m sorry,” Tifa says quietly. “Things were a little...messed up. I don’t think I was me in the beginning, but,” and her eyes can’t help but drift toward Aerith, who stands a little father away, composed but red eyed, “my heart had a reason to start...drifting back. If that makes sense.” 

“It doesn’t,” Cid says, just as Cloud nods helplessly. 

“Figured,” Tifa says.

* * *

It takes her a few more days and sessions with Curaga to be cleared out of bedrest. Eventually Tifa gets the story behind the new scar on her chest; Sephrioth had made it a killing blow. Light and Darkness had stitched themselves together, and returned to Cloud’s heart in formless balls of energy. Tifa’s body had been left behind, barely breathing. She’d only been under for a day, of course, but time never worked in the realms outside of the Realm of Light. 

It feels strange, truth be told. She isn’t exactly sure where she, as herself, began to take shape and left behind the Light extracted by Xehanort’s Keyblade; she has memories of being both, sitting there in her head, but she knows she’s as human as Cloud is. It’s a little strained between the two of them, but eventually they settle. 

Cloud apologizes for making her run for so long. Tifa apologizes for ignoring him when he’d been trying to tell her the truth. They make plans to see if Nibelheim has been restored, as it’s ten years overdue, and pinky promise not to lose the other if it turns out it’s still lost in sleep. Apparently, the Restoration Committee has more than a few favors to cash in with the Keyblade Masters; one of them can wake Nibelheim if need be. 

And if Nibelheim really is gone for good, then they will deal as they always have. 

Tifa falls into her friendships without hiccups. Squall is a pain in the ass, Cid’s cranky, and Yuffie keeps asking her what’s on the other side. But Cid’s cranky because he’s getting old and his apprentices are talking rodents (Chip and Dale are their names and what, exactly, the fuck that’s all about Tifa has no desire to know), Yuffie copes with her fear of the unknown with questions and humor, and Squall’s brooding stoicism bounces off of Cloud’s pretty nicely. 

(And if she’s seen them giving each other secret smiles--well, she’s surprised that Cloud’s actually taking the initiative, but he could do worse.)

Aerith is the hardest to read, because Tifa never gets the chance to be alone with her. Aerith makes excuses and avoids her until she’s had enough. Until she hobbles her ass over to the church, and walks through the doors. Aerith is watering her flowers, and she goes still when she hears Tifa’s footsteps. 

“What are you doing out here, silly?” Aerith says, expert deflection, setting aside her watering can and standing with grace. She smiles like a lie and tilts her head. “You should be resting.”

“Probably,” Tifa acknowledges. She walks toward Aerith anyway, and maybe not-so-subtly lets her weight land too hard on a bad leg, lets it buckle under her. She catches herself on a pew, so as not to ruin any more stitches, and Aerith is moving for her, helping her to sit. 

And when she’s in grabbing distance, Tifa  _ grabs _ , hauls Aerith onto the seat next to her, and says, “Talk to me.  _ Please _ .” 

Aerith pouts. She hates being outconned. “What’s there to talk about, Tifa?” 

“You’re not okay and I want to know why.” Tifa pauses. “I can guess and assume, but I don’t want to be presumptuous--”

“Well that’s never stopped you before,” Aerith says with more heat than she clearly intends to by the shocked turn of her mouth. “I-I’m sorry. That came out--”

“Exactly how it needed to. Aerith, please.” 

“It wouldn’t be fair,” Aerith says sharply. Her jaw shivers. “Because you were going through a...a pretty bad identity crisis. You didn’t think you were  _ real _ and it hurt and I shouldn’t be  _ mad _ because you were hurting too and, and I...you said that it was all a lie. That you were...just something  _ Cloud _ made up.” 

Tifa listens, lump in her throat. 

“Which would have made everything that we shared,” Aerith half laughs, a hand to her head, “just something he made up too, I guess. And I  _ liked _ him, I know I did, but we were children and then you said you  _ loved me _ and rejected me so, you know, mixed messages, a-and then you  _ died _ or nearly and--” 

Aerith stops. Buckles beneath the strain and drops forward. Tifa wraps her up without hesitation, pulling her close so Aerith can sob, bitter and unrestrained and ugly against her. She empathy cries; silent tears trek down her face, but this is Aerith’s release first and foremost, so she says nothing at all to stop it. She simply holds Aerith while it happens, draws circles against her back. 

She thinks of starlight and flowers, and that perfect, puzzle piece reaction of their hands connecting. 

“I love you,” Tifa says when Aerith has cried herself out to sniffles. “That hasn’t changed at all.” 

It makes Aerith shudder and she pulls her face from Tifa’s damp shoulder. Her face is flushed and puffy and she looks a little miserable, but happy, too. 

“I love you,” Tifa says again, softer. Like it’s a precious little secret just for the two of them to share. 

“I love you too,” Aerith whimpers. “I think since that night under the stars. Remember?” 

“I can’t forget it,” Tifa confesses. “It was the first time I felt so...human. It scared me so much. I didn’t want to fail you, or Cloud. I couldn’t bear the idea of being so selfish…” 

“Hmph,” Aerith huffs. She knocks her forehead against Tifa’s. “Dilly-dally, shilly-shally,” she says in singsong, then tilts her chin for a kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> the ending seems a little contrived and confusing, but trying to suss out the rules of kh lore without a set up of 20k words before it is NOT something im willing to do for a self indulgent one shot. if i failed to 100% explain anything within the story, or you have questions, feel free to ask! anyway, rough timeline: 
> 
> cloud and og!tifa, age 6: fall of nibelheim, spearheaded by the madman og!sephiroth. through the same magic that leaves people adrift in traverse town, they end up in radiant garden and are fostered away from the rest of the radiant garden crew.   
> cloud and og!tifa, age 8-10: og!tifa dies in an accident involving a bridge. cloud survives with minor injuries.   
> cloud, age ~17: pre-fall. after years of making friends with the radiant garden crew and tentatively starting up a romance with aerith, cloud joins the royal guard where is experimented on by 'ansem' (terra-xehanort)  
> cloud, age 17-18: spends a year in captivity. the light and darkness in his heart hasn't been Completely ala ventus, but they're both given physical and tangible shape. his darkness takes on the form of general sephiroth, whom cloud attains 98% of his deep seeded trauma to; his light takes on tifa's shape and mannerisms, also due to trauma, but like, in a Semi Positive Way. radiant garden falls, sending cloud on a revenge mission against sephiroth.
> 
> the rest of the story proceeds from the ending of kh1->com->kh2.


End file.
